Читать книгу Ronald Standish - Herman Cyril McNeile - Страница 10

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Even now, after the lapse of years, I sometimes wake up sweating at the nearness of the thing. But for one tiny slip on their part, and Ronald’s extraordinary quickness in realising its significance, one of the most atrocious crimes of modern times would have succeeded. Many garbled accounts have appeared in the Press. Now for the first time I will set down the real truth of that amazing plot.

It occurred on the second day of the Grand Duke’s visit. A ceremonial call on a former British Ambassador who lived some fifty miles away had been arranged, and at eleven o’clock the car drew up at the door. Groves was driving, and seated beside him was the man who passed as the Grand Duke’s secretary, but who was in reality a highly-placed secret service man. Behind sat the Grand Duke and his host. The car rolled away, some of the house-party watching it depart. Nothing could have been more normal. And then two minutes after it had gone a chance remark of Johnson’s threw the spark into the powder magazine.

“Never seen the Duke so angry in my life,” he said, “as he was with that new chauffeur a few minutes ago.”

“What was the trouble?” asked someone perfunctorily.

“He’d let the car run practically dry of petrol.”

“What’s that?”

Ronald’s voice came like a pistol-shot, and then things moved.

“Bob—get the bus. Move, man, move!”

I raced towards the garage, and was back inside a minute with the Bentley, to find Ronald waiting. He boarded her whilst she was still moving, leaving a crowd of surprised guests staring after us. He flung himself down in the seat beside me, and with a little thrill I felt something hard in his pocket pressed against my thigh. Whilst I had got the car, he had got his revolver.

“The tank of Catface’s car was full last night, Bob,” he said quietly. “I had a look at it on purpose. Stamp on the gas, boy.”

And three minutes later we were in the village. In front of us was the Rolls outside Harvey’s garage, filling up from the petrol pump.

“Pull up just behind her,” said Ronald.

His eyes were darting in every direction, but at the moment the scene looked harmless enough. The village street was almost deserted save for a powerful-looking racing car outside the “Bat and Ball,” and Harvey and his assistant, who were manipulating the pump. The secret service man had descended and was standing by the window on the side of the Grand Duke. The chauffeur, having watched the filling for a few moments, had returned to the driving seat. At length the operation was over; the pipe was held up to let the last drops out; the gauze filter of the car was put back in the tank; the cap was screwed on. And a moment later they were away.

“Seems all in order, old boy,” I said.

He did not answer; only stared after the back of the retreating car.

And suddenly his eyes narrowed, and without a word he raced down the street after it. Stopped, picked something up in the road, and came back towards me like a madman.

“Get her going!” he roared. “And chase the Rolls.”

He fell in beside me, and I saw that he held in his hand a gauze filter. Even then I didn’t get it. Evidently the assistant had forgotten to put it back in the tank, and any time would do to return it. And at that moment the roar of the racing car behind us drowned our own machine.

“They’re after us,” said Ronald, through set teeth. “And they’ve got our legs. Saw the curtains moving in the inn and I knew we were being watched. The woman and two men.”

“What shall I do?” I cried. “Let her all out?”

“Yes, until I tell you otherwise.”

The road was twisty for the first mile, and we swung round corners with the other car on our tail. In the glass on the screen I could see their faces at times, and suddenly I saw one of them stand up and draw a revolver from his pocket.

“Look out,” I howled. “They’re trying gun work.”

“Are they, by gosh?” said Ronald, kneeling up on the seat and facing backwards. “Two can play at that game. Swerve about a bit, Bob, till he’s fired.”

Came a crack and the pilot lamp shattered.

“Now keep her steady.”

For about a hundred yards the road was straight, and I could see them all in the mirror. And then it happened. Ronald fired, and the car behind us seemed to swerve like a mad thing across the road. I had a vision in the glass of wheels upside down; heard a frightful crash; then silence save for the roar of our own engine.

“I burst their front tyre for them,” said Ronald quietly, sitting down again. “And now then, Bob, every ounce of juice.”

His face was cold and set, but I could feel the nervous tension of him. And still half dazed I drove on—drove as I have never driven before or since—drove till we saw a minute or two later the Rolls in front of us.

“Keep your horn going,” he cried, standing up and waving his arms violently.

At last we saw Catface look round, then turn and give an order to Groves. The car slowed down and stopped.

“Pull up beside ’em, but stand by to move on,” said Ronald.

We reached them, and Ronald yelled his orders.

“Fall into this car for your lives!” he shouted. “Hurry! For God’s sake, hurry!”

They tumbled in a heap into the back of the Bentley.

“Drive on, Bob. Stamp on it again.”

And I suppose I’d gone fifty yards when it happened. There came a deafening explosion, and the Rolls seemed literally to split in two. The whole of the back part flew in pieces, and what was left became in half a second a raging inferno of flames. For a while we watched it in awe-struck silence, and then the Grand Duke lit a cigarette and turned to his host.

“Cutting it a trifle fine, I think. Do all your cars do that, my dear fellow?”

“How did you find out, Ronald?” said the other shakily.

But Ronald was staring at Groves, who had turned as white as a sheet.

“Who got at you?” he said sternly. “And how much were you paid for emptying the tank?”

“Nothing, sir,” he cried. “Before God, I swear it. It was a lady, your Grace, who had never seen his Royal Highness, and she begged me to stop the car in the village so that she could have a closer look at him. She wanted to take a photograph, and she suggested emptying the tank.”

“You damned scoundrel!” roared the Duke. “How came that infernal bomb or whatever it was into the car?”

“That he is not responsible for, old boy,” said Ronald quietly. “Harvey’s assistant is the man who did it. But whether he knew it was a bomb or not I can’t say. Turn the car round, Bob. There are one or two little things to be cleared up.”

And the first of them was soon done. The car that had pursued us had turned clean over and crashed down a steep bank, killing all three occupants.

“They started some shooting practice at us, as you can see,” said Ronald, pointing to the shattered lamp. “So I retaliated, and was lucky enough to burst one of their front tyres.”

“Assuredly, Mr. Standish,” remarked the Grand Duke, “you seem to be a man after my own heart. Though I am still not quite clear why, if you saw the bomb being put in, you did not warn us at the time.”

“Because, sir, I did not realise then that it was a bomb. I thought the assistant was putting back the gauze filter, and it was not until it fell off the back of the car as you drove off that I realised that what he had put in was something else. Sheer luck. No skill of mine. Had you gone another thirty yards before it slipped off, and rounded the corner out of sight, the death roll would have been in our camp, I fear. But—it did slip off, and I saw it. It was a certainty then as to what had happened, confirmed by their immediate pursuit of us.”

And that is the true story of one of the most sensational cases of the past few years. Harvey’s assistant proved to be almost a half-wit who had been bribed by one of the men to put the time bomb in the tank, having been told by him that it was a patent device for increasing mileage. And Williams, who had been kept a close prisoner in a house on the outskirts of London, returned to the Duke’s service. It transpired that the woman had made the same suggestion to him as she did to Groves, and on his refusing indignantly, the two men had sprung on him out of the darkness. She had previously pitched him some yarn about being persecuted, and he had met her on one or two occasions. In fact, the only remaining thing left to chronicle was the arrival, a few days later, at Ronald’s rooms of a beautiful little clock. And on the back of it was engraved: “Guaranteed not to explode. Sergius.”